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Unable to set preferred domain, can I verify a site that's already redirected?

I'm in the process of trying to set a preferred domain in webmaster tools -- to set our www version as preferred vs. the non www. version. IT is already redirecting non-www to www, but I get this message when trying to change settings "Part of the process of setting a preferred domain is to verify that you own http://mnn.com/. Please verify http://mnn.com/."
While we own the domain, I am not sure how we can have Google access a file at http://mnn.com/[some_file when we are forwarding all requests for non-www to our www site.

Note: The apache rewrite predates me and I'm not sure how / why we have two domains set up, but I'm trying to fix the preferred domain now.Am I able to verify the non version once the redirect is in place.Any ideas??? Help???Thanks!Lisa

5 Responses

Don't worry about the redirect. Just go to webmaster tools and input the non www version of your site and go through the verification process. Use the same method to verify that you did for the WWW version and you should be able to set the preferred domain after that.

The trick here, Aggie, is that every site you verify through your Webmaster Tools account will give you the same verification file/code to upload to the website. So when you ask Webmaster Tools to create and verify a new site using the non-www version of the domain, it will find the file you uploaded the first time (since as you say - they're the same site!) and will recognize it as your WMT account verification code.

A bit counter-intuitive, but as Irving and Paul say... it just works :)

Now that you've got your answer, could you mark as "Good Answer" whichever answers you found most helpful and mark the overall question as answered? This will help other users who may come across the question in the future.

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